A New Chapter in the Stablecoin Market: The Rise and Challenges of Yield-Generating Stablecoins

As the global financial system becomes increasingly turbulent, the cryptocurrency stablecoin market is迎来新的发展机遇. In particular, the emergence of yield-bearing stablecoin (YBS) has brought new vitality and possibilities to this field.

Recently, the dominance of the US dollar has been challenged, with various countries reducing their holdings of US Treasury bonds, and the dollar is gradually losing its status as the global reserve currency. This situation creates favorable conditions for the development of crypto stablecoins. Although non-US dollar stablecoins are still in the exploratory stage, demand for alternatives to the dollar is growing.

The current stablecoin market size is approximately $230 billion, accounting for nearly 10% of the entire cryptocurrency market. Among them, traditional stablecoins such as USDT and USDC still dominate, but yield-bearing stablecoins are rapidly emerging. Represented by Ethena's USDe, these stablecoins attract users by offering yields and have achieved significant growth in a short period.

USDe adopts a hedging model to balance risks by shorting ETH on centralized exchanges. At the same time, it incentivizes large holders to hold USDe by issuing ENA tokens. This model, while innovative, also faces challenges in sustainability. Currently, USDe has an annualized yield of about 9%, but it is difficult to maintain such high returns in the long run.

In fact, the high yield of YBS is essentially a customer acquisition cost. To truly succeed, YBS needs to gain a broader range of application scenarios, not just as a financial management tool. Currently, YBS is mainly focused on the DeFi sector, and its application in payment, trading, and other scenarios is still limited.

The future development direction of YBS may include:

1. Adopt more on-chain assets as reserves to reduce dependence on the US dollar.
2. Collaborate with more DeFi protocols to expand the ecosystem
3. Develop payment products and expand application scenarios.

Overall, YBS represents a new trend in the stablecoin market, but it will take time and further innovation to truly become mainstream. With the changes in the global financial landscape, there is still significant room for growth in the stablecoin market.